1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a holder for cooling battery modules and, more particularly, to a holder for cooling battery modules that maintains a temperature difference between plural battery modules below a specific value, reduces the number of module support parts, and ensures improvement of assembly performance and reduction of manufacturing cost by supplying cooling air to pass by the battery modules mounted in a hybrid vehicle and the like.
2. Description of Related Art
In general, the battery of a vehicle is a part for supplying electric power to the respective elements of the vehicle and repeats charge and discharge by loads of electronic devices and a generation unit of the vehicle. During such a process, the temperature rise of the battery causes some problems in that the internal resistance in the battery is changed, the electric performance is deteriorated and thereby efficient electricity management of the vehicle is not established.
As the development and application of hybrid vehicles and high voltage batteries such as 36V has advanced the need for lowering the internal temperature of the battery to an appropriate level has been raised. For example, Japanese Patent Publication No. 2003-308888 has disclosed a structure in which various cooling air rectifying members are established in cooling air inlets, cooling air outlets and an inner surface of the battery case so as to change the flow direction and the flow rate of the cooling air, thus cooling plural battery modules and, at the same time, maintaining the temperature difference between the respective battery modules at a specific value.
Moreover, Japanese Patent Publication No. 2005-183343 has disclosed a battery case in which the flow area of cooling air is reduced toward the downstream of the cooling air so that flow rate of the cooling air is increased to uniformly cool plural battery modules mounted therein.
However, the above-described patent for maintaining the plural battery modules at a specific temperature has some drawbacks in that the module support structure is complicated and accompanied with increases in the dimension, weight, number of parts and manufacturing cost, since various parts such as cooling air baffle plates, guide grooves, cooling air rectifying members, etc., are provided in the cooling air inlets, the cooling air outlets and the inner surface of the battery case. Moreover, since the gaps between the battery modules are small, it requires greater cooling air flow and further causes an increase in cooling fan power.